


A Calculated Risk by Madison

by sgamadison



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Action/Adventure, Drama, First Time, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-23
Updated: 2011-07-23
Packaged: 2017-10-21 16:15:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/227130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sgamadison/pseuds/sgamadison
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He was an idiot. Maybe the biggest idiot of them all.  Spoilers through S5. Mention of Rodney/Katie and Rodney/Jennifer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Calculated Risk by Madison

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Xanthe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xanthe/gifts).



> written as a get well soon story for xanthelj

"What's up with Colonel Crankypants?" Rodney nodded toward John's retreating figure as he stumped his way out of the mess, leaning heavily on his crutches as he headed for the exit. Rodney took his seat across from Teyla and Ronon, setting his tray down with a thump.

Teyla looked up from her fruit and yogurt, glancing in the direction John had taken. "I believe the Colonel is on his way to physical therapy."

"He couldn't wait for two seconds for me to join you guys? Not to even say 'morning, Rodney'?" Rodney's imitation of John's drawl was getting damn near perfect, if he did say so himself. He automatically smacked Ronon's hand as he reached across the table to snitch a piece of bacon, giving Ronon a mock dirty look as he grinned without repentance back at Rodney.

Teyla traded a quick glance with Ronon, whose grin only became wider.

"What? What is it you're not sharing? Come on, spill."

Ronon opened his mouth as though to speak, but Teyla inexplicably set her spoon down abruptly on the table with a sharp little clatter of sound.

"No." She was quite firm.

"No?" Rodney was confused. Teyla usually served as a sort of emotional interpreter for the team—well, okay, for _him_ , really. He couldn't understand her refusal now.

"Your people have a saying, I believe. 'Give a man a fish and he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish and he eats for life.' You would be well advised to follow this course of action. I think it is time you learned to 'fish' for yourself, Rodney." Really, she looked quite stern.

"I don't like fish." Rodney leaned back in his chair, nonplussed at Teyla's sudden lack of support.

Her expression softened briefly, and he thought there was a chance she might give in. Instead, she tightened her lips and placed her nearly empty bowl and her silverware back on her tray. "You know I am not being literal. Here is an interesting concept you might consider. Why do you not ask John yourself?"

"Well, I _could_ ," Rodney said, helping himself liberally to the scrambled eggs on his plate as he spoke, "but he's not here right now."

Teyla stood with her tray in hand, looking disapprovingly down at Rodney, her diminutive stature making her look a bit like an angry elf. An elf that could kick his ass into the middle of next week, so he'd never say that to her face.

"If you want to have relationships with people, Rodney, then you have to work at them."

Rodney stopped eating mid chew. "Relationships? Who said anything about that? I just wanted to know who pissed in Sheppard's Wheaties this morning."

Ronon snickered.

"Ask him yourself." Teyla went to return her tray and left the mess hall without looking back.

Rodney crunched on his bacon thoughtfully. "What's up with Teyla?" he asked, waving a piece in Ronon's direction and then sighing when Ronon snagged it anyway. Ronon, at least, wouldn't try to improve his social skills.

"Torren's teething." Ronon, as usual, was short and to the point.

"What? Again? At this rate the kid will have more teeth than a Great White."

Ronon grinned his appreciation for Rodney's imagery. He hadn't seemed very impressed with the idea of surfing until John had showed him video of some of the competitions on Earth—and some footage of shark attacks as well. Rodney knew that Ronon was just waiting for John's knee to heal so they could try a little surfing of their own. They'd been talking about making boards (Rodney was pretty sure they'd solved the board issue by now) and wax (he'd suggested using John's hair product, which hadn't gone over well), and John had been peppering his sentences with all sorts of weird surfer dude slang that had never before made an appearance in his conversation.

Come to think of it, he hadn't heard much about either since John tore the cartilage in his knee after a fall on PX3-595.

"So, what's bugging Sheppard?" Rodney asked, still frowning as he thought about the sudden silence on John's new favorite subject.

Ronon stared at him a long moment with one of those Conan-the-Barbarian expressions that Rodney couldn't read. He reached out suddenly and snatched the apple off Rodney's tray.

"Hey!" Rodney protested. Ronon's white teeth flashed as he crunched into the apple with relish.

"Like you were really going to eat that." Ronon spoke around his chewing.

"I _was_ ," Rodney insisted. "You didn't answer my question."

"Are you still seeing Keller?"

The question seemed to come out of nowhere. He suspected he had missed some little connection, something that tied his question about John into Ronon's current train of thought, but if so, he had no clue. That's where Teyla usually intervened and connected the dots, damn it.

"Why?" Rodney narrowed his eyes. "Are you still interested?" Regardless of whether he was seeing Jennifer or not, the competition between him and Ronon for her attention was hard to let go.

"No." Ronon's expression was cool, and Rodney wondered what had happened between them to cause that. On second thought, he didn't want to know.

"Oh my god." It hit him with a sudden flash of disastrous insight. " _Sheppard_ is interested." Which really made him feel sort of clenchy in his abdomen. Because if he'd thought his competition with Ronon as a potential suitor was tough, this was terrible. If John was throwing his hat into the arena, then all bets were off. Hell, all John had to do was lean up against a vertical surface and smile, and Jennifer (or any other woman under the age of eighty, and at least half the men, too) would start blushing and stumbling over her words. If he crooked his little finger...

 _Well, what did it matter if John wanted Jennifer anyway?_ He didn't know why the thought depressed him; only that it did.

For some reason, Ronon thought Rodney's epiphany was very funny and he didn't do a good job of hiding his amusement. "No," he said at last. "Sheppard's not interested in Keller."

"Oh." Rodney poked around at the food on his plate, which had lost its appeal. "Well, not that it's any of your business, but no, I am not seeing Jennifer anymore."

"Why not?" Ronon continued to eat the apple, his large bites taking it down almost to the core.

Rodney wasn't sure he could share the real reason with Ronon. It was mortifying. Instead, he reached for his favorite shield, sarcasm. "She asked me if Paul McCartney was in another band before Wings."

Ronon looked blankly at him, something he'd perfected very well over his years as a Runner. No doubt something in common with feral cats and large predators.

"Paul McCartney. You know, as in the Beatles? Oh, never mind, I don't expect _you_ to get it."

"I get it." Ronon finished the apple and tossed the core back on Rodney's tray, leaning back in his seat in a very John-like pose. "I'm just surprised that was a deal-breaker for you. You know she was kidding, right?"

"I know that _now_ ," Rodney said. "The problem was, I couldn't tell. Which sort of made me realize how big the age difference was between us."

"You're not really going to tell me why you split up, are you?" Ronon's teeth made a lightening-flash appearance before he settled on just looking smug.

"No." Rodney deliberately began eating the food he no longer wanted.

"Then you'll just have to ask Sheppard what's bugging him yourself." Ronon unwound himself from his chair, leaving Rodney to finish his congealing breakfast all alone.

****

Rodney would have asked John what was eating him, only he forgot. Well, he didn't forget so much as get busy, and then the next thing he knew, a week had gone by in which he'd scarcely seen his team at all, let alone catch John alone for a little heart to heart chat. Trapping a stray tom to take it in for vaccines and neutering would be easier than pinning John down to talk about his feelings. The idea of John as a battle-weary tom, who could be enticed into the house with a little food and the promise of a warm place to sleep, amused Rodney for the better part of an afternoon. That is, until he started picturing John as sleek black cat, with a shining coat over rippling muscles, leaping effortlessly up to the foot of Rodney's bed. The image was so clear that it made Rodney uneasy, and he felt compelled to do a quick database search to make sure there was no Ancient-to-cat shape-shifting technology anywhere within Atlantis.

So he was startled when he ran into John in the corridor a few days later, and not only was he _not_ a cat, but he was still on crutches.

"Oh, hey," Rodney said, frowning at the way John swung his body between the crutches, barely toe-touching with his right leg, his knee sporting a neoprene brace that he wore over his BDUs. This was not the smooth fluidity of movement Rodney was used to seeing. In a weird sort of way, it actually pained him to watch John move, and felt as off as hearing an engine misfire, or the whine of an uneven energy balance in a ZPM. "I thought you'd be off those by now."

John made a face. Rodney used to think that John only had about three or four expressions until he learned to appreciate the subtlety of them all. This one definitely spoke volumes about frustration and impatience, and was only a step or two away from open rebellion. It pleased Rodney on some level to think that anyone else would just see 'annoyed'.

"Me too." John's voice was sour. "Apparently I'm not healing as rapidly as I should be, according to Keller." There was an additional note of dissatisfaction when he said Jennifer's name and Rodney couldn't help feeling again the small sense of relief that John obviously wasn't interested in Jennifer romantically.

"Huh. That's not like you."

"According to your girlfriend it is."

There is was again, that irritated tone when he referred to Jennifer. It was on the tip of Rodney's tongue to say Jennifer wasn't his girlfriend anymore when John continued.

"You can't keep abusing your body and expect it to bounce back like it did when you were twenty, Colonel," John's nasal whine was obviously meant to imitate Jennifer. "You can't keep jumping down from balconies, or scaling the city walls like you're Spiderman."

"Huh. She got that all wrong. Well, I can see the error; Spiderman would come to mind first. But you're definitely Dark Knight material—Batman all the way. Unless of course, the whole Iratus bug thing really _did_ leave you with residual superpowers. Still, you never got hurt in any of _those_ escapades, though you took years off everyone else's life. What she should have told you was to stop impaling yourself through your abdomen and to stay away from bugs."

John shot Rodney a funny look, one he couldn't quite interpret. It was disconcerting to realize he didn't know all of John's looks and he tried to figure out just what he'd said to trigger this one.

John turned to face the direction in which Rodney was headed, falling into step with him as they continued down the hallway. "So how much longer on the crutches?" Rodney asked.

"Until the end of the week." John sounded defeated. They walked in silence for a moment, punctuated by the soft squeak of the rubber-footed crutches along the tiled floor and the occasional metallic clink of their aluminum frames. "They have me on an extended course of PT too. They're taking it slow." He made another face, this one mocking and sarcastic.

"Oh my god." Rodney snapped his fingers as he suddenly got it. "You're pissed because she's saying you're _old_." Hah! He didn't need Teyla after all.

John came to an abrupt halt, looking seriously disgruntled. "She said I should consider my position as CO here and let some of the younger officers take more of the off-world missions." John's voice was silky; he was using the tone he usually took when interrogating a Wraith prisoner. Right before he pumped the prisoner full of lead.

Rodney winced on John's behalf. "Yikes. Is she still alive?"

"Don't worry." John clomped away, leaving Rodney to catch up. "I'm not gonna hurt your girlfriend."

Rodney matched strides with him so that he could hold up a finger in John's face as they walked. "One," he said. "She's not my girlfriend. Two, the new, raw recruits are not the ones you want to be sending out on dangerous missions—at least not until they've learned that Pegasus is about as far from Kansas as you can get."

"Tell me about it. Lorne's got this great idea where we send out the newbies with just a cryptic warning to 'Beware the Sleestaks'. They get so worked up trying to figure out what the hell a sleestak is that survival rates on first missions have gone up significantly, because anything might be one. Wait a sec." John stopped again. "You broke up with Keller?"

"Didn't I read about that training method in a sci-fi novel somewhere? Or are you cribbing from Land of the Lost again?"

John just grinned. He took a hopping step for balance and then leaned on his crutches again. His expression changed as he obviously remembered he was supposed to be having a serious discussion with Rodney. "So. Keller?"

Rodney sighed. The fact that John could never seem to bring himself to call her Jennifer had always struck Rodney as a bad sign. He should have known better then. It was on the tip of his tongue to give John the same flippant answer he'd given Ronon, but something compelled him to say the truth. "She liked me better when I had worms."

He'd never realized how much he'd resented that until he heard it now in his voice.

John burst out laughing in that honking, dorky laugh of his, which he quickly stifled at Rodney's expression. "Sorry, buddy. It just sounded funny when you put it like that."

Rodney felt a small smile steal over his face. It was why he'd announced it in that manner. He secretly enjoyed cracking John up and making him lose that cool control.

"It's true, though." Rodney felt the irritation rise up in him anew at the remembrance of the conversation he'd had with Jennifer the night he'd decided to call things off between them. "She liked the _idea_ of me, the me that she saw when I had the brain parasite, and she kept acting as though it were in my power to be that person again, if I only tried hard enough and paid enough attention to what I said and how I behaved."

"Ouch." John's wince was suitably sympathetic.

Somehow, without any conscious acknowledgement of the fact, they both began walking down the corridor again.

"I know, I know!" Rodney got indignant all over again. He mimicked his perception of Jennifer's attitude as well. "'I love you dear, except I want you to change everything about yourself.' The worst part is—I fell for it. I fell because she was young and smart and really, really hot and she seemed to like me." It had been flattering too, when Jennifer had chosen him over Ronon. He had to wonder, however, how much he would have pursued her had it not been for the competition between him and Ronon. That puzzled him. Human behavior fell into the fuzzy sciences as far as he was concerned. Give him a basic chemical reaction or the laws of physics any day. It didn't help either that when he kissed Jennifer, his brain kept flashing to the scene in _Back to the Future_ where Lorraine kissed Marty, not knowing that he was her future son, and she reacted by saying it was like kissing her brother. John had a lot to answer for, Rodney decided irritably, blaming John's penchant for improbable comedies with bad science for leaving a permanent mark on Rodney's brain.

John was watching his face, as though trying to determine Rodney's thoughts. Rodney got the sense that John would have shoulder bumped him or patted him on the arm, had he any extra arms to spare.

"You're not the first or the last guy who's gonna make that mistake, buddy."

"Is that what happened with you and Nancy?"

John's face curiously shut down at the mention of his ex-wife. "Something like that. Well, are we going to get this show on the road or what?"

Rodney should have known better than to mention Nancy, but damn it, sometimes he just wished he knew more about John's life before Atlantis. It was as if his life hadn't really begun until he walked through the Gate into the city for the first time, and sometimes it drove Rodney nuts. "Um, what show?" He was confused. Had he missed a memo again?

John raised an eyebrow at him. "The meeting with the party from Kywne. Don't tell me you forgot about that. I thought that's why you were coming to meet me."

Rodney made a face and snapped his fingers together rapidly several times, as he tried to grasp hold of the memory. "Are they the people with the water reclamation problem or the salt traders?"

"Neither. They're the guys with the potential design for the blasters—you know, the one you said we might be able to mass produce here in Atlantis?"

Rodney slapped his forehead. "How could I have forgotten? That's today? I thought that was next week."

"It was." They were coming up on the control room, walking along the upper balcony where it looked down over the Gateroom. "They moved up the meeting, and since I was grounded," John made another not-very-happy face, which let Rodney know it was the restricted duty and not the visiting strangers that was pissing John off, "Woolsey invited their representatives to come to the city."

  
He vaguely remembered the email changing the meeting time. "Well, that's a relief. I thought I was losing my mind."

"Again."

"You think up these snappy comebacks when you're sitting alone in your room, don't you? I bet you practice them in front of the mirror too."

John snickered like a twelve year old and Rodney obligingly rolled his eyes, even as he smiled as well.

The initial greeting of the new arrivals went as expected. Rodney snuck little surreptitious glances at his watch during the whole interminable period in which they waited for the contingent from Kywne to come through the Gate, stare in gob-smacked awe at the City of the Ancients and, with varying degrees of excitement or politeness, make their introductions.

Rodney had already examined the prototype weapon one of the scientists on Kywne had cobbled together in his spare time. It was a sound design, relying on a crystalline power source native to Kywne that would make it far more useful in the long run than a traditional projectile weapon, should the supply lines of ammo from Earth be compromised. Rodney had found it kind of cool that John thought about these kinds of problems, and then had teased him unmercifully when he'd caught John reading Flint's sci-fi novel "1632," in which an entire West VA town was transported back in time.

He'd borrowed the book after John, jumping in line over the next twenty people with the logical argument he could finish it in one evening. After he'd ruthlessly picked apart the plot and the hand-wavy mechanics of the time travel, he and John had held a series of fascinating discussions as to the similarities between the universe created in the book and the level of technology shown by the average community in Pegasus. There seemed to be more in John's speculations than how to make Atlantis an autonomous community in the event of being cut off from Earth. Rodney suspected the first seeds of movement toward independence were there as well. It both excited and frightened the hell out of him.

It was a bit like playing The Game that had occupied so much of their spare time those first couple of years. Only this time, they knew it was for real.

"Right. Well, that's all very interesting, to be sure," Rodney interrupted when it looked as though Woolsey was going to continue to bow and scrape (and yet oddly posture at the same time) with the main negotiator some more. Honestly, sometimes Woolsey reminded Rodney of the little Yorkie that Woolsey kept a picture of on his desk. He turned to Ferkin, the developer of the weapon, and the only person from Kywne that he'd met before. "Did you bring a supply of crystals as we asked?"

Ferkin, a dark, weedy-looking sort of fellow, nodded. He nervously mopped his mow with a damp handkerchief, stuffing it back in his pocket before clutching his satchel with both hands again.

Syntis, the negotiator for the party, was a tall man with dark blond hair and a neatly trimmed beard. He bristled at Rodney's perfectly legitimate question. "What guarantee do we have that you won't steal our technology and design? You, who have all this?" He waved a hand to include the city. "We have nothing but this with which to bargain."

Rodney opened his mouth to speak at the same time that Woolsey did, but John forestalled them both. Leaning on his crutches such that he could still briefly close his fingers around Rodney's arm, he spoke with his easy charm-the-natives drawl. "Now that's not true. You guys have a powerful bargaining position. You have the design, but you have the source of the crystals as well. We have the people and the means to mass-produce the weapons. It's a win-win for everyone here."

"And the sooner we run the tests, the sooner we'll know if the average crystal is pure enough to use as a power supply across the board." Rodney jiggled a foot impatiently. "Are we going to get started or what?"

He was a little surprised when John chose to come with him and the two scientists from Kywne down to the labs, leaving Lorne and Woolsey with Syntis and the rest of the delegation. When he thought about it though, it made sense. Even though it was a long way for him to hobble, John was unlikely to give up a chance to watch anything 'go boom'. He wouldn't be surprised if Ronon magically showed up as well, like a cat at feeding time.

The long walk to the labs seemed to take its toll on John, however. He was moving very slowly by the time they got to the room that Rodney had set up for testing the crystals and he sat heavily in a chair at the first opportunity.

"You okay?" Rodney asked with some concern.

John waved him off. "I'm fine. Let's see what you've got."

Ferkin seemed overwhelmed at first by the set-up in the lab, continuing to act flustered and nervous when Rodney asked him about the work that he'd done on the weapon and the tests he'd conducted on his own back on Kwyne. He began to warm up though, during the process of testing the crystals, particularly when he became entranced by the Ancient scanning technology. Rodney suspected too, that Ferkin relaxed once he realized Rodney wasn't going to eat him. With a mental sigh, Rodney tempered his snark down to off-world levels to put Ferkin at ease.

Ferkin's assistant, a great hulking man called Dorn, was useless, however. He stood off to one side glowering in the manner of an unhappy Ronon, and it finally occurred to Rodney that Dorn was actually a bodyguard, not a real scientist. He supposed the lab coat was just for show, in order to make them think Dorn was nothing more than a low-level technician. He couldn't answer the simplest question, for pity's sake. He also tensed each time someone from Rodney's staff entered the room, relaxing only when they grabbed whatever they'd come for and left again.

"Huh. Just as I thought." Rodney peered at the screen and pointed out the nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy results to Ferkin.

"What?" John lurched to his feet and made his way stiffly toward the monitor. Rodney eyed him frowningly.

"See these graph lines here? They are of the particle wavelengths emitted by the crystals when we send energy through them. They indicate crystal stability."

"The squiggly ones?" John leaned forward on his crutches. Rodney sensed the presence of Dorn moving in to look over their shoulders.

Rodney sighed loudly, recognizing his role in the McKay/Sheppard Road Show. "Yes, Colonel," he said in a much put-upon tone. "The squiggly ones. Can you appreciate how the squiggly lines of the last three crystals we tested do not match up with the blue line up here? That's the control crystal—the one we know will work properly in the weapon. This would suggest that at least fifty percent—maybe more—of the crystals so far have structural flaws that will prevent them from being used safely in the gun. May possibly result in catastrophic explosions."

"But we have much crystal!" Ferkin stumbled over the words. "It is everywhere on our planet!"

Dorn made a noise of disapproval, and Ferkin abruptly shut up.

"Well, that's good," John said casually. "So we'll just have to screen the crystals first. No big deal, right Rodney?"

Rodney pulled at his lower lip. "It would significantly delay production, unless we set up the Kywne with a means of scanning on their end before they even ship the ore to us."

"There, you see?" John's voice had an odd soothing quality to it. Rodney looked at him sharply.

"Or maybe even Dr. McKay can work around the crystal problem, you never know. Right Rodney?"

Little warning bells went off in Rodney's head. He suddenly felt the tension coiled in John's body, even as he continued to lounge deceptively on the crutches. He made eye contact with John, raising a questioning eyebrow toward him. John frowned ever so slightly and flicked his glance at Dorn.

"Um, right. Yes. Yes, I'm sure, given time, this is not an insurmountable problem."

John leaned on his crutches, pleasant half-smile in place. Rodney noted that the light above caught his eyes in such a way that they almost appeared golden brown. He'd seen John in a number of different lighting situations over the years. In the white-hot glare of the desert sun, in the near pitch-blackness of a Hive ship. In the warm glow of the breaking dawn over the city and in light of a campfire off world. He'd seen John's eyes bloodshot from days with no sleep and with small bags under them when he was exhausted from the same. John's eyes alight with some daring plan—be it for fun or for their survival. He knew John's eye color was technically 'hazel', yet he was always hard pressed to describe them—they could be anything from the smoky amber they appeared now to the muddy green of pond water—all depending on the lighting and John's mood. John could speak volumes with just a glance. Saying John's eyes were hazel was a lot like saying the sea was blue. There were as many shades of blue as there were blades of grass on New Athos.

It suddenly occurred to Rodney that he couldn't even remember what color Jennifer's eyes were.

Ferkin looked patently relieved at Rodney' reassurance that the crystal problem might be solved. He opened his mouth to speak, only Dorn snarled something inarticulate and reached under his lab coat to pull out one of the prototype weapons.

"Death to the Pretenders!" he shouted as he took aim at John.

Before he could scarcely finish his sentence, however, John had flipped his crutch up and knocked the weapon out of Dorn's hand. He brought the other crutch up to jab it in Dorn's solar plexus, causing the big man to let out his breath with a grunt. After the jab, John followed through with an upward swing until the crutch connected solidly with Dorn's chin. His head snapped back with the impact.

"Dorn, no!" Ferkin yelled.

Rodney dove for the gun on the floor near Dorn's feet, which caused Ferkin to scramble after him. Ferkin was closer, and his hands closed round the gun handle first. Rodney flattened him, using his greater weight to pin Ferkin to the floor.

Caught up in his own fight, he couldn't pay as much attention to John's battle as he'd have liked. He was conscious of the crashing of crystals and lab equipment as one of the other combatants swept the counter top clean—and now there was broken glass on the floor where he was still scrabbling with Ferkin. He caught sight of Dorn wheeling a chair at John's knees and he shouted a warning. John rolled up on one of the desks to avoid the chair hurtling in his direction, and then dropped down off the other side, crutches clattering to the floor. Rodney heard his grunt of pain as he landed.

"Got it!" Rodney said with triumph, wresting the gun away from Ferkin. He got to his feet, carefully dusting off shards of glass from his pants.

Dorn plucked the gun from his hand.

Rodney froze, hands in the air, as he looked in dismay up the barrel of the weapon he was supposed to be testing. He heard an articulate noise of rage from John, and turned along with Dorn to see John lurching in their direction.

"No!" Ferkin shouted in an agonized voice as Dorn took aim once more. "The crystals—"

Rodney had no choice; he grabbed Dorn's arm and directed it toward the ceiling as he fired. There was a blinding flash of light and Rodney felt a searing moment of heat boil over him before he fell to his knees, the sound of Dorn screaming in his ears.

Dorn fell to the floor, curling up in a ball with the bloody stump of his arm tucked into his body as he keened his agony. John was limping toward them when Rodney heard the whine of an unstable crystal. He spotted it in a second—a section of gun glowing metal-hot and wavering with the energy buildup around it. Rodney met Ferkin's gaze from where he'd taken cover under a desk, his eyes dilated with fear.

John tackled him, his weight sending both of them crashing to the floor behind the desk as the remnants of the gun exploded.

John used his body to shield Rodney, throwing his arms over Rodney's head at the last minute. His face pressed next to Rodney's as they fell to the floor, their bodies in a paradoxically intimate contact. Bits of ceiling tile and paper floated lazily in the air around them; John's hair was coated with a fine dust, and when he lifted his head, Rodney could see that he had a long scratch under one eye.

Close up, Rodney could now see all the different colors in John's eyes: how the base color was green, overlaid with a light brown that striated out from the pupil like the prisms in cut glass. The irises were rimmed with a dark gray band. They were beautiful.

That's when Rodney realized he was a fucking idiot. He was in love with John Sheppard.

"You okay, buddy?" John had caught him staring; he was looking at Rodney with a strange expression on his face.

"I have glass in my backside."

John winced on Rodney's behalf and then carefully lifted himself off of Rodney's body, trying not to make things worse by pushing down on him. Rodney had to admire for a moment the strength in John's forearms and it made him want to dopeslap himself all over again.

John winced a second time in pain, as he went to move off of Rodney and his knee must have pinged him. He rolled on his back carefully and drew his knee into his body as much as the brace would allow, holding it there as he grimaced.

"Colonel! Dr. McKay! Come in please!" Woolsey sounded worried, as well he should be. "Alarms are going off in your section."

"Sheppard here." John touched his earpiece. "Send medics and security down to the labs. There's been an explosion, as well as a security breach. Hold the remainder of the delegation under guard until I arrive."

"Will do, sir." Lorne sounded grimly determined. Rodney felt like adding an 'atta boy!'

Rodney got up slowly, trying to avoid putting his hands down in more glass, as he rolled up on his knees again. He rested on his heels, looking down at John.

"Where's Dorn and Ferkin?" John asked, his eyes half-shut so that Rodney could only see a hazel gleam.

Rodney glanced around. "Ferkin is underneath the desk with his face buried in his hands. He's mumbling and rocking. He might be praying." _You'd better pray_ , Rodney thought nastily in his direction. Dorn lay face down in the rubble, no longer clutching his arm. There seemed to be a lot of blood all around him—none of it spreading any more. "Not too sure Dorn's still alive."

"Pity," John said. He attempted to heave himself up and struggled a bit like a turtle on its shell. "I hate it when we're the 'Pretenders'."

Rodney grinned and held out a scraped and bloody hand for John to grasp. He pulled John up so he could get his legs underneath him, but John made a pain-face and grabbed his knee. Rodney just sat there, still gripping his hand for balance, until the wave of pain passed.

He let John take his time, continuing to provide support as they both slowly got to their feet.

"Thanks." John looked down at where Rodney still gripped his hand and looked up with a frown.

Rodney let go then, only to take John's face in his hands and kiss the ever-living stuffing out of him.

He hadn't meant to do that. It's just John was right there and it just seemed like the thing to do and even then, he'd only meant to kiss brush John's lips with a kiss, not go after him like he was performing a tonsillectomy. But after the initial frozen stiffness (with which John greeted almost all forms of touch until he figured out what you wanted), John unexpectedly relaxed into Rodney, parting those lush lips ever so slightly. It was all the invitation Rodney had needed. He put everything into that kiss he could think of.

_I want you. I want this. I've been a blind fool not to have seen this all along. You were always the person I was thinking of, the person I wanted to please, the person I wanted to share things with._

And when John neither pushed him violently aside nor punched him one, Rodney tipped his head and deepened the kiss, letting the length of his body press up against John, so that John could feel the hardness of his cock, and know that Rodney really meant this.

"Rodney! Colonel Sheppard! Are you all right?"

John became rigid at the sound of Radek's voice calling from the corridor. Rodney could hear the confused and alarmed babble of several staff members as people began to congregate on the scene. He took a step back so John wouldn't have to.

"What the fuck was that, McKay?" John asked in his steely, 'let's go kill some Wraith' voice.

"I can tell you what it's not," Rodney said thoughtfully. "It's not like kissing my brother."

He had to be satisfied with the stunned expression on John's face as scientists, medics, and military alike began streaming into the room.

****

John was coming to see him that evening; Rodney knew it.

It didn't matter that it had been an interminable afternoon, with the aftermath of the attempted coup d'état that had turned out to be one zealot's attempt at making a statement rather than the kind of takeover that Kolya had once launched. There'd been the visit to the infirmary to have pieces of glass removed from his ass (and knee, and hands too, for that matter). He'd been relieved when Jennifer had chosen to scrub in on Dorn in an attempt to save his life, and had deferred the glass picking to someone else. The last person he wanted to be facing his naked ass right now was Jennifer.

Dorn had not survived his surgery. "Too much blood loss and trauma," Jennifer had said on coming out of operating room, pulling the mask off her face and looking impossibly weary for one so young. Rodney knew how badly she felt when she lost patients—even bad guys—and he'd felt for her. It was one of the things that they hadn't seen in the same light when he was dating her. Jennifer was the oddest mix of bold confidence and insecurity that Rodney had ever met in one person. She had advanced through her education at warp speed, landing a prestigious spot in the Pegasus expedition at an age where most of her colleagues had yet to finish their programs, and yet she could be almost paralyzed at times with the knowledge that she was way in over her head here in Pegasus. Rodney had pointed out they were _all_ in over their heads—he resented sometimes the way Jennifer had placed a higher degree of personal responsibility on herself because her job entailed saving _lives_. As if his or John's didn't.

She had personally come to check on him prior to his release, for which he'd been both grateful and impatient.

"It's just a few minor cuts and scrapes. I should've been released hours ago. I have things to do."

Jennifer, tired as she was, had done an obvious double take for his benefit. "Who are you and what have you done with Rodney McKay? You come into the infirmary for a hangnail, Rodney. Since when have you started channeling the Colonel?"

Rodney had felt his face flame with embarrassment. "Someone tried to kill John—or rather us—as a political statement today. The delegation from Kywne is hysterical, the trade deal might be off the table, and we need those weapons, Jennifer. I need to put the lab back together and make sure that the crystals will work as planned."

"I'm sure you do," Jennifer had said soothingly. "But I'm going to give you some pain meds and antibiotics, tell you to stay off your backside for a few days, and come back for suture removal in ten days. You might consider taking the evening off. I'm sure Woolsey and the Colonel won't mind." She'd handed him several small vials of medication.

Rodney had sighed. "This deal is really important, Jennifer."

"I gathered from the way the Colonel refused to stay and let me do laser therapy and ice his knee. I gave him the painkillers he wanted and let him go interrogate the delegates from Kwyne. I hear that Dorn was acting on his own—that's good, right?"

"Yes," Rodney had said sourly. "It means we might be able to salvage something from this mess after all. Provided I can make the crappy crystals work."

"I'm sure you'll find a way to make the weapon work, Rodney." Jennifer's tone had been light. "You always do. By the way, I hear you were quite the hero today."

"I was?" Rodney had been taken aback. "I mean, of course I was. I usually am, you know. In a very subtle way because I don't like tooting my own horn."

He'd noted Jennifer had started an eye roll and then caught herself before completing it.

"So, um, what exactly did you hear?" Rodney had been burning up with curiosity.

Jennifer had been able to tell, damn it. She'd grinned as she spoke. "The way I hear it, you saved the Colonel from being shot by Dorn. You deflected the gun toward the ceiling, despite the knowing the risk it might blow up in your face."

"I didn't know that would happen." For some reason, Rodney had wanted her to be clear on that point.

"But it _did_ happen. Rodney, you have no eyebrows."

Rodney had touched his hairless eyebrows self-consciously, and was aware that his receding hairline was slightly singed now. "Well, I wasn't thinking of that at the time." He'd been brusque in his statement. "I was thinking I didn't want him shooting John."

Jennifer had shot him one of her bright, odd looks—the kind he'd never quite figured out. "Yes, well, that's where the hero bit comes in."

He'd smiled then, and spontaneously leaned in for a quick peck on the cheek.

"What was that for?" Jennifer had asked, surprised into touching her face where he'd kissed her.

"I'm sorry," he'd said. "For everything. For not being what you wanted. For not being what you deserved."

He'd left her with a bemused expression on her face and had thought it ironic that only now, when he'd finally figured out what he wanted, could he be the kind of man she'd always wanted him to be.

He waited nervously in his room now. Waiting for John to come. He was sure that John would come—unless John's usual reticence to discuss anything that remotely resembled emotions would outweigh his sense of duty in getting to the bottom of Rodney's behavior earlier this afternoon. Because that's what a good team leader would do—no matter how difficult the conversation. And John was a good team leader, though in moments of doubt, Rodney thought John might decide to sit on any sort of discussion for a few days.

 _Please let him come, please let him come_. Rodney paced around his quarters restlessly, unable to sit down and unwilling to lie down. He glanced at his 'bait'. He'd managed to negotiate his way into a bottle of Glenfiddich single malt whiskey, by trading every last crappy can of Budweiser he had, and throwing in some prize Tim Tams as well. He thought it would be worth it though. He despised John's beer of choice and drank it only because John did. He knew that John liked scotch and this was the best available on the Atlantis black market. John would know that too.

 _Cream in a saucer_ , Rodney thought, and debated having a shot or two now while he was waiting.

It had taken all day to sort things out. Ferkin had nearly collapsed under the strain—he really had no inkling that Dorn had any intent of starting a one-man jihad. He'd explained the reason he'd fought Rodney for the gun was because he was concerned that the gun would do exactly what it did—blow the hand off the person who used it. His abject sincerity in not wanting to see Rodney injured in this manner had been hard to refute. Syntis had been suitably shocked and angry as well at the death of one of his party. It had taken video footage of the attack and ensuing fight to persuade him that this was not some Lantean plot to discredit his team. Oddly, that had convinced John that Syntis was on the up and up.

It turned out that Radek had set up the video surveillance, thinking it would be wise to document the proceedings simply from an informational point of view. He'd explained sadly that the video feed had been interrupted by the explosion, but of course, by then, Syntis had seen all he needed to know that Dorn had attacked first.

Rodney had pinned down Radek after the meeting. "Zelenka..." he'd trailed off, not knowing what to say.

Radek had studied the toes of his boots. "The video footage was destroyed by the explosion, Rodney. There is no recording of any events that took place after the explosion."

Rodney had let his breath out in a gusty sigh of relief, nodded, and turned to leave.

"Rodney," Radek had said, stopping him in his tracks.

"Yes?" Rodney had been prepared for the worse.

Radek had positively twinkled at him. "It's about time."

Rodney had let Radek have his little moment of triumph, reminding himself that payback could be a bitch, if he felt like it later.

That had just left the clean up, the debriefing, and the assurances on the part of the Kwyne that this was an isolated incident. As a token of goodwill, they left some crystals and the prototype weapon for Rodney to play with. Almost stuttering with weariness, Rodney had grabbed a bite in the mess, where he ended up filling in Teyla and Ronon on the details. After that, he'd delegated orders to his minions, secured the scotch, and had returned to his quarters for a careful shower. Not having any eyebrows made him look weird, and he debated calling Jennifer and asking to use an eyebrow pencil before deciding against it. Because that would be really weird. Especially if he had to ask her for help in drawing them on.

The buzz at his door, though anticipated and expected, made him jump. He hurried to open it, hoping the Fresh Scent body wash would go far to offset the smell of Crisped Hair.

The little rush of feeling he had when he opened the door and saw John standing there was hard to contain. "Sheppard," he said, in an effort to be normal, before he remembered he'd been calling him John for some time now. "John. Come in."

He stepped back to wave John into the room.

John hesitated briefly before entering Rodney's quarters. He limped to the center of the room and halted when he spied the bottle of scotch on the table. He'd showered and changed as well, dressed in the black T-shirt and BDU pants that he so often favored. Very much the Colonel. It wasn't a good sign. Rodney noted with a little spurt of hope, however, that he'd shaved.

"Glenfiddich?" John questioned. "I was told there wasn't any in the city."

"It's not enough to strike fear into the hearts of others," Rodney said as he walked over to the table and poured each of them a shot. "You have to inspire loathing as well."

John snorted and accepted the glass, taking an appreciative sip.

"No crutches?" Rodney asked, sipping from his own glass. The liquor was smooth going down, with an after-kick that made him feel flushed.

"Keller wants me back in the morning, but she doesn't think I did too much harm today. I don't think she has any expectations of me staying off the leg with crutches any better than with this." He indicated the larger, more complex brace he wore on his leg now.

"Good." Rodney nodded his approval at the news. "You were faking it, then, when you appeared so tired down in the labs."

"I was getting a bad vibe from Dorn. You picked up on things mighty fast. Good for you."

Rodney shrugged. "You almost never call me by my professional title. Even when you're introducing me to diplomats, you tend to refer to me as simply 'McKay'. It raised a red flag."

John grinned and nodded. An awkward silence fell while both men drank from their glasses.

"So," John said at last. "You want to talk about this afternoon?"

"God, no," Rodney said with feeling, causing John to laugh.

"Well, that's all good and everything, but where does that leave us?" John stared at his glass as though he were surprised it was empty and he took several halting steps toward the table to refill it.

"Friends?" Rodney suggested. "Colleagues? Team mates?" He hesitated before plowing on. "Friends with benefits? Lovers?"

John choked on his drink, having to wipe his chin before turning to face Rodney.

"You're serious."

Rodney took a deep breath. "Yes, yes, I know. It's completely presumptuous on my part and totally out of the blue and probably not something you'd be even remotely interested in, but it hit me like a ton of bricks this afternoon that this— _you_ —had been staring me in the face for the last five years, and I just had to say something."

"What about Carter? And Keller? And Katie, for god's sake. Rodney, you were going to _propose_ to her."

Rodney folded his arms across his chest. "I could say the same of you. What about Chaya? And Teer? And every other space bimbo that crossed your path?"

"Okay, Chaya was an Ancient." John ticked her off as though she didn't count, and Rodney was gleeful at the defensive tone in his voice. "As for Teer, I didn't think you guys were coming for me."

"You'd been missing, what, twelve hours by that point?"

"Six months by my book, and you know that, Rodney." John set down his glass firmly. He turned as if to go.

"Yes, well," Rodney spoke slowly, and watched John halt and wait to hear what he had to say. "The very fact that I was deeply in love with Jennifer so soon after breaking up with Katie is suggestive, isn't it? Teyla would say I was in love with the idea of being in love."

There. He'd invoked Teyla's name. Everyone on the team knew that to do so meant you had to listen.

"What would you call it?" John stood tense and wary, still on the verge of leaving.

"I would say that Teyla was largely right, but also that I thought I couldn't have what I wanted and that subconsciously I knew that."

"And if you still can't have it?" John looked as though he hated to disappoint Rodney and Rodney's stomach sank with the weight of that disappointment.

"I'd wait until that time when I could. Anything less would be unfair to the other people involved. Unless, of course, they knew up front I was using them for sex."

"Very magnanimous of you, to be sure," John drawled dryly.

"Ooh, big words, Colonel. Of course, you only know them because you hang around with me."

John laughed then, his real laugh, the dorky one. He sobered suddenly and his voice became husky when he spoke once more. "I'd give you what you wanted if I could. I'd give you anything, Rodney."

"It's not just DADT, is it?" Rodney felt that sinking in the pit of his stomach again. "It's your position as CO here." He felt his heart contract at the realization he might be able to compete with Chaya or Teer, but never with Atlantis.

"I can't risk it." John lifted his chin ever so slightly then, and Rodney could see that he'd lost. John was going to stay firmly behind his personal code of honor.

"Okay. Right. I get it. You would if you could, but you can't so that's that. Well. I hope this won't affect our working relationship, Colonel."

"Rodney." John sounded pained. "Don't be like that."

"Don't be like what? I get it, Colonel. You should be _glad_. Bullet dodged and all that."

John eyed him doubtfully and began his halting progress toward the door once more. He stopped suddenly to look back at Rodney. "So we're okay, then?"

"I said we are, didn't I?" Rodney said testily.

"That was pretty brave thing you did today, you know. Jumping in to deflect Dorn's shot."

"It was pretty stupid too," Rodney said sourly. "I should've thought that the gun might explode in his hand, but all I could think of was that he might kill you, and I was just on the verge of figuring out I loved you, so I couldn't let that happen."

John stared at him in shock for a second.

"What did you say?" He looked almost stern.

Rodney tried to remember everything he'd just said. "Um, we're okay with you not reciprocating my feelings and I like the idea of you being alive?"

John hitched his way very deliberately into Rodney's space, so that once again, he got a close up view of those hazel eyes.

"You love me." John's statement was just that: flat, unquestioning.

"Um, yes?" Rodney tried to look apologetic.

He saw it there, a split second before John moved—a tiny glimmer of hope. "Aw, what the fuck," John said, as he pulled Rodney into his arms for a kiss.

Now _that_ was a kiss, Rodney decided. Because John never did anything by half-measures. He kissed Rodney with all the pent-up hunger of a man who had stumbled on an oasis in a desert, and with sudden clarity, Rodney realized that John's life before Atlantis must have seemed like a desert in many ways. He opened himself up to John's kiss, accepting the warm slide of John's tongue into his mouth and thinking of other places where he wouldn't mind that tongue touching him, and other forms of sliding and pushing. He drank John in. _Here. Rest here. Take your fill_.

They parted, breathless and staring into each other's eyes.

"Yeah, um, so now what?" For once, John didn't look like he was completely in control of the situation.

"And here I thought you were the big planner. I'm teasing!" Rodney held onto John's arm when he would have pulled away. "I'd suggest sex, but I'm not sure either of us is up to that at the moment. We've got booze. We could watch a movie." Rodney decided he'd even sit through _Back to the Future_ again, but if they were going to re-watch something tonight, he hoped it would be _Galaxy Quest_.

John put on his thoughtful face, the one where he was obviously trying too hard to look innocent. "Can we fool around a little?"

"Maybe." Rodney acted as if this was a huge concession and not exactly what he wanted all along. "Just so long as you remember I have stitches." He pointed at his ass.

To his delight, John flushed.

"Yeah, well, I'm not exactly up for going down on my knees at the moment, either." John indicated the brace.

Rodney pulled John into him so that they bumped chests, and kissed him hard. "So not going to be able to concentrate on the movie now," he murmured into John's skin as he let his lips trail toward John's ear.

In the end, they never got around to putting a DVD in the player. Later, after a leisurely round of touching and exploring, punctuated occasionally by a grunt of pain when something protested at the activities at hand, Rodney lay beside John on his bed, sleep threatening to overtake him. He was sated and relaxed, having given pleasure and received it in return.

"What tipped you off with Dorn?" he asked drowsily, drawing little patterns on John's skin because he could.

"You thought he was more of an idiot than usual. That's when I knew he wasn't a scientist. Ferkin wasn't comfortable around him either."

"He wasn't part of the team," Rodney said, wondering how Ronon and Teyla would react to the idea of John and him together—because there was no way they could keep secrets from the team.

John squeezed his arm as though he understood Rodney's thoughts.

"You could have called for back up."

Rodney felt John exhale his breath in a snort next to him and he marveled at knowledge that he was close enough to John to actually feel this. "Without proof? I would have offended the entire expedition and probably blown the trade mission. Nope, it was a calculated risk."

Rodney felt a laugh bubble up somewhere from deep inside him at John's words. John felt it too, and rolled up on one elbow to look down at Rodney. "Something funny, McKay?"

"I was just agreeing with you. Yeah, that's exactly what it was."

They both knew Rodney was referring to something entirely different.

~fin

  



End file.
